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Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

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Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#41

Post by exclusiv »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #24

Melinda Gates says: "Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that very first CS course. If it’s completely geared towards an 18-year-old white male, and they are not thinking about role models for women or problem sets they get for women, how do we keep [women] in the course?" I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager…

I came from the same camp, but what's great is you don't have to be in CS to have a great tech career these days. I was in Computer Engineering, then a more applied Engineering major and finally switched to Sales my last year and that combination was perfect for me.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#43

Post by xenihn »

M_Grey wrote: post #7
fjjrxcbdhx wrote: post #3

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

Or coal miners! /s Seriously, the answer is the same as why half of the planet wants to be in tech, money, success, and influence. The general thinking is and has been that you try to fairly populate the mid-top range of jobs, and that's more effective than trying to shoehorn in more women driving dumpsters.

>the answer is the same as why half of the planet wants to be in tech, money, success, and influence.

If those are your primary concerns, odds are you'd be more interested in finance or politics.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#44

Post by slededit »

fjjrxcbdhx wrote: post #3

Why not more female sanitation workers or more male elementary school teachers? What makes the gender demographics of building websites so much more important than all these other imbalanced fields?

Probably because Melinda herself worked in tech (how do you think she met Bill?) and therefore has more of a connection to this industry then to sanitation workers.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#45

Post by M_Grey »

xenihn wrote: post #43
M_Grey wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or coal miners! /s Seriously, the answer is the same as why half of the planet wants to be in tech, money, success, and influence. The general thinking is and has been that you try to fairly populate the mid-top range of jobs, and that's more effective than trying to shoehorn in more women driving dumpsters.

>the answer is the same as why half of the planet wants to be in tech, money, success, and influence. If those are your primary concerns, odds are you'd be more interested in finance or politics.

This may come as a shock, but plenty of people don't have what it takes to make it big in finance or politics, or don't want to make money, have success, and gain influence by being a monster.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#46

Post by xiaoma »

wahsd wrote: post #2

What is it these days (for a couple decades now, actually) that somehow discrimination is totally fine when it's discrimination against many people. Why is an initiative to get women into tech ok (which begs to question how one gets women into tech without girls having been gotten into tech), but if there were an initiative to get more men into tech there would be all out hostility towards it? What happened to equali…

These are some unpopular views and apparently others took it upon themselves to silence them via flagging.

I'm sure my views don't line up completely with wahsd, but these are valid questions to ask. Particularly given the recent investigation of Palantir's hiring practices (for hiring Asians at a far lower rate than qualified applicant pools would suggest).

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#47

Post by internaut »

xiaoma wrote: post #46
wahsd wrote: post #2

What is it these days (for a couple decades now, actually) that somehow discrimination is totally fine when it's discrimination against many people. Why is an initiative to get women into tech ok (which begs to question how one gets women into tech without girls having been gotten into tech), but if there were an initiative to get more men into tech there would be all out hostility towards it? What happened to equali…

These are some unpopular views and apparently others took it upon themselves to silence them via flagging. I'm sure my views don't line up completely with wahsd, but these are valid questions to ask. Particularly given the recent investigation of Palantir's hiring practices (for hiring Asians at a far lower rate than qualified applicant pools would suggest).

I initially flagged this thread because it looked like a classic flamebait topic.

I unflagged it because it looks like a civil discussion was being had.

However I am sick to death of "Women In Tech" constantly coming up on HN, a while back gender topics would sometimes account every tenth discussion thread with classic left vs right rants and I think most people here have had their fill of this topic.

I think there is a huge population of political activists acting as concern trolls with respect to gender and sexuality topics. You have anti-FGM activists attacking tumblerinas, you have outrage junkies attacking conservatives because of something to do with bathrooms and 0.01% of the population.

None of this is supposed to lead to a healthy discussion, it is a culture war fought exclusively by armies of strawmen (and strawwomen!).

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#48

Post by tw04 »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #24

Melinda Gates says: "Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that very first CS course. If it’s completely geared towards an 18-year-old white male, and they are not thinking about role models for women or problem sets they get for women, how do we keep [women] in the course?" I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager…

Can you expand? Because I really, really don't understand. How do you "gear" a programming course towards a gender? I can't recall a single example in any CS course I ever had that was anything more than writing code. I honestly can't even fathom how you would make that gender or race biased. It's mathematics and programming.

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#49

Post by koder2016 »

bonniemuffin wrote: post #24

Melinda Gates says: "Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that very first CS course. If it’s completely geared towards an 18-year-old white male, and they are not thinking about role models for women or problem sets they get for women, how do we keep [women] in the course?" I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager…

Asians seem to be doing fine, though? Oh, I forgot, the [hated_group_name] is redefined until it includes all people who achieve academically. Also her sexist remark is really not necessary :(.

http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Melanie_Upfoot

"Melanie took over as the math teacher for the girls, however she did not teach math, she used the subject for female empowerment, talking about "how numbers make you feel," "what does a plus sign smell like" and "is the number seven odd, or just different" while disapproving of men treating math like a problem that needs to be solved, none of these being actual math subjects as math 'is' about solving problems."

Re: Melinda Gates Has a New Mission: Women in Tech

#50

Post by hkmurakami »

tw04 wrote: post #48
bonniemuffin wrote: post #24

Melinda Gates says: "Some of the best programs, UW, Stanford, Berkeley — or what [president] Maria Klawe is doing at Harvey Mudd — are finally looking at that very first CS course. If it’s completely geared towards an 18-year-old white male, and they are not thinking about role models for women or problem sets they get for women, how do we keep [women] in the course?" I can really see myself in this -- as a teenager…

Can you expand? Because I really, really don't understand. How do you "gear" a programming course towards a gender? I can't recall a single example in any CS course I ever had that was anything more than writing code. I honestly can't even fathom how you would make that gender or race biased. It's mathematics and programming.

Currently, boys are more culturally inclined to have had previous exposure to technology and programming than girls. This leads to an uneven starting point when they arrive in college.

Now this is fine in a vacuum, but when you put students with different experiences into one room, the ones with prior experience will naturally tend to do better. This relative lack of experience is often misinterpreted as a relative lack of ability or aptitude by the students with less experience, even if their potential is equal if not better than their more experienced peers.

Since gender currently correlates with experience, one way to help balance things gender wise is to even the field wrt experience. This is something Harvey Mudd has done well. (Granted, their stats will be inflated since Harvey Mudd is an excellent STEM school that attracts some of the most technology inclined female students in the country to apply).

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